The last medieval queens of England were Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville, and Elizabeth of York - four very different women whose lives and queenship were dominated by the Wars of the Roses. This book sets out to answer important questions about the nature and role of queenship in the last years of medieval England.

The last medieval queens of England were Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville, and Elizabeth of York - four very different women whose lives and queenship were dominated by the Wars of the Roses. This book is not a traditional biography but a thematic study of the ideology and practice of queenship. It examines the motivations behind the choice of the first English-born queens, the multi-faceted rituals of coronation, childbirth, and funeral, the divided loyalties between family and king, and the significance of a position at the heart of the English power structure that could only be filled by a woman. It sheds new light on the queens' struggles to defend their children's rights to the throne, and argues that ideologically and politically a queen was integral to the proper exercise of mature kingship in this period.

Weaving together institutions and personality, family and realm, intimacy and ceremony, The Last Medieval Queens, is a wise book by a young and lively scholar. It is well written and beautifully produced, and is worthy of a wide readership both academic and popular.